Nalanda tourism industry wobbles

RAJGIR: The Covid-19 pandemic has hit hard the tourism industry in Nalanda, bringing the operation of several hotels, restaurants and shops to a grinding halt. Consequently, thousands of families have been pushed to the brink of starvation.
Although popular monuments were thrown open to visitors in October and November, they have been witnessing poor footfalls.Junior conservation assistant T N Behra attributes the situation to the pandemic and non-operational long distance trains.
“Over 8,900 people visited Nalanda in November, which is only 13% of the footfalls recorded during the same period in 2019. Altogether 69,161 domestic and foreign tourists had come here in November last year,” Behra told this newspaper on Saturday.
With no customers, small traders have suffered a huge hit. The owner of an artefact shop in Nalanda, Sugreev Kumar, said he was finding it difficult to make ends meet.
“The situation is so critical that I had to stop my children from going to school,” Sugreev rued.
Another shopowner, Roshan Kumar, pointed out that the footfall of domestic and foreign tourists had increased substantially after the Nalanda Mahavihara entered the UNESCO’s World Heritage list in 2016. “However, the Covid-19 pandemic completely washed out our business that dipped to 10% in November,” he added.
Hotelier Roshan Kumar claimed that the pandemic “forced me to shut down one of my five hotels”. “I am not earning enough to pay salaries to my staff or clear electricity bills,” he said.
Echoing similar views, Fukhruddin, a restaurateur, said his business had witnessed a sharp decline.
Even traders selling religious items have felt the Covid impact. Pintu Upadhyay, a priest at Rajgir’s Brahma Kund that has had no visitors since March, asserted, “The livelihood of nearly 300 families of priests depends completely on the donations they get from devotees. Hence, they are on the verge of starvation.”
Pintu also alleged that the government had done nothing to help the priests during the pandemic.
A ‘mujabir’ at the Makhdum Kund, Shakeel Ahmad, said the footfall of devotees had declined drastically.
Meanwhile, social activist Navin Kumar pointed out that the pandemic had slowed down the ongoing developmental projects in Rajgir.